City's Gang Shootings On The Rise Despite Truce, Increased Patrols

Joliet — Gang-related shootings in Joliet are up from this time last year despite an increased police presence in "problem" neighborhoods.

In the first six months of 1993, police have connected 142 shootings to street gang activity. For the same period of 1992, 95 shootings were gang-related, police records show.

The increase comes despite an alleged truce between two of the city's four gangs that was supposed to reduce street violence. Police say the gangs made their supposed agreement in mid-May after police stepped up their patrols of neighborhoods on the city's east side, where two officers were shot at April 14 in a gang-related incident. There were no injuries in that incident.

"They said they were going to stop shooting at each other," said Sgt. Fred Hafner, who heads the city's criminal investigations unit. "That doesn't mean they aren't shooting at other gangs and that the other gangs aren't shooting back. Our numbers show there is a recent increase in gang shootings."

Three of the city's five murders so far this year have been gang-related, police say, the same number as in the first six months of 1992.

Drive-by shootings, however, are slightly down from this time last year, when 53 had occurred. This year, 51 drive-by shootings have been documented.

Also down is the number of people wounded in gang shootings. Thirty-seven people have been wounded so far this year as a result of gang activity, compared with 53 in 1992's first six months.